Assessors have historically warned visitors to their offices that the tax maps are not property line plans. They are an inventory of all the ownerships of land within their municipality and they approximate the geometric size and shapes of individual parcels. Compiled from recorded individual subdivisions and plans of land, the maps are a composite index of a municipality’s land records. No certification of the accuracy of the assessor’s parcel lines is ever conveyed.

On January 31, 1972, Attorney General Robert H. Quinn wrote a legal opinion regarding assessor’s maps, “…the purpose of the maps is only to sufficiently describe the property in question in order to provide effective notice of which property is being taxed.”